(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

I took The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer down from the shelves today, which I have always meant to read but never have, and I started reading it (I should be reading Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine, but I am not). I was most relieved by this passage, right at the very beginning:

After the ecstasy of direct action, the militant ladies... settled down..., while the main force of their energy filtered away in post-war retrenchments and the revival of frills, corsets and femininity.... Evangelism withered into eccentricity.

The new emphasis is different. The genteel middle-class ladies clamoured for reform, now ungenteel middle-class women are calling for revolution.

Germaine Greer wrote that in 1971, about second-wave feminism. Today, now, everywhere are the post-feminists, women who want equal rights and equal pay but shy away from the word "feminist", roll their eyes at the mention of oppression, insist that just everything is fine, argue happily that women are paid less because they have the children (and that's O.K., because mothers aren't productive and don't deserve to be paid), are enthused about the sexual revolution but missed the part where it said that you shouldn't have to fake it and that it's still O.K. to say, actually, no, I don't want to do that with my body, are happy to beg their boyfriends to fix their computer, don't speak up when they feel uncomfortable, don't say it's not O.K. to say that, don't think female genital mutilation is their problem, don't think the education of women in the third world is their problem, don't think it's part of feminism, don't think it says anything about women today, don't think there's any difference between the way men and women are treated, don't think the media portrayal of women is a problem.

I want, in ten years' time, I want someone to be writing a book about my feminists, the feminists of today, and say that now we are calling for revolution. I know it can happen. I know it needs to. I hope it will.

Comments

[kitsunerei88]

Like I've stated before, I think that it's much worse to force women who don't want to be in a discipline to be in it just to even it out. Especially in engineering, such a mentality could be potentially dangerous. If there are 25% women there, at least those 25% want to be there. I do not want my buildings to be built by a mind that's only half there.

With the amount of outreach (particularly towards women) done by the Faculty of Engineering, I'd like to politely suggest that perhaps there are only 25% women in that faculty because only that 25% want to be there.

As for why only 25% of women want to be there? I would consider that an issue.

[anna-en-route.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by force?

I mean are you suggesting that people want to frog march women into class each day?

I honestly don't know what the solution is but I know that there were a lot of talented women in my classes at uni who enjoyed programming but have gravitated towards the more people intensive less hardcore programming jobs and I know that the industry has lost out.

P.s. the vendor in the above example is an incredibly well known software firm whose product you are in all probability using right now...

[kitsunerei88]

Sometimes, it seems like those people want to do just that. --''

I think the solution starts at home, in a family. For example, psychology studies have shown that parents are more likely to explain science exhibits to their sons rather than their daughters because they believe that their daughters aren't as interested even when it is shown that their daughters are equally apt and interested as their sons.

I simply don't believe that making a fuss and saying that things are unfair really helps anything. We all know it isn't. For me, change starts with what I, as a person, DO, rather than say.

[anna-en-route.livejournal.com]

I believe making a fuss is about the only way you're going to change some of the less welcoming attributes.

At the very least you get people to stop and think about the stupid things they say.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Word to that. People have to be aware.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I simply don't believe that making a fuss and saying that things are unfair really helps anything. We all know it isn't.

See, for me, in my experience, that is totally untrue. Far from seing women make a fuss, I see women minimalise unfairness or outright deny that it exists. "It's not more difficult to be a woman in computer science: women just don't like it/aren't apt in that field/are naturally more interested in the arts."

"There aren't any problems in the workplace anymore; women just get paid less because they take more time off/are less productive/are less career oriented than men."

"Women are just less aggressive than men, so of course they don't get ahead in business. And they aren't less agressive because of socialisation, it's all in the genes!"

It's crap and I'm sick of it, and that's why I make noises about things being unfair, and that's why I think it's important to shout about feminism from the rooftops and encourage girls in Engineering, because people aren't aware about it and they do deny it, women included, women especially.

[kitsunerei88]

I actually think that in many respects, NOW it's almost as damaging to scream from the rooftops about it. It used to be effective.

From what I've seen, I think that feminists have screamed about it for so long and so hard that people just don't listen any more. They've heard it all before, and some don't believe it anyway. The rest know that it's unfair, but have heard it for so long that the speech is actually annoying.

When I see women who say things like what you've used as examples above, I want to strangle them. When I see women who scream about how things are unfair, I kind of want to strangle them too.

Personally, I think that feminism would make a better stand by getting involved and doing, rather than mainly saying. I'm involved in outreach and stuff, and I think that it's more important to SHOW people what you're capable off than to just say it. It's different; people have heard, but they just haven't SEEN.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I can't reply to this at all because it made me very, very angry. But feminism, in fact, does get involved in doing. Unfortunately, feminism can't force men and women not to be sexist. You can't act in ways that make your professor or your employer or your coworker or your customers less sexist. Sometimes, though, you can point out to them that they're being sexist, or their superiors, and then something happens. Sitting around saying nothing because it'll just piss people off, or whatever, is exactly the wrond attitude.